WITH a stubborn atmosphere failing to warm as predicted, another climate threat was needed to sustain the Climate Crisis industry and keep lazy reporters supplied with junk science to feed their catastrophic climate narrative. Enter “ocean acidification”!

FROM the onset, the term “ocean acidification” was deceptive by design. Oceans are alkaline. The correct ‘scientific’ term for any pH change toward zero is “less alkaline”. Obviously not the scariest of descriptors to shock the public into belief.

“Ocean Acidification” was first referenced in a peer-reviewed study in Nature in 2003, resulting in an explosion of journal articles, media reports and alarmist publications from environmental orgs. It has since gone viral, endorsed by scientists from numerous alarmist institutions including the Royal Society, the IPCC and NOAA who coined it “climate change’s evil twin” in a 2016 report.

A 2016 paper published in the ICES Journal of Marine Science put the issue of “ocean acidification” under the microscope, and found Scientists exaggerating the carbon dioxide threat to marine life…

Applying organized scepticism to ocean acidification research

“Ocean acidification” (OA), a change in seawater chemistry driven by increased uptake of atmospheric CO2 by the oceans, has probably been the most-studied single topic in marine science in recent times. The majority of the literature on OA report negative effects of CO2 on organisms and conclude that OA will be detrimental to marine ecosystems. As is true across all of science, studies that report no effect of OA are typically more difficult to publish.

Excerpts from the paper:

Scientific or academic scepticism calls for critical scrutiny of research outputs before they are accepted as new knowledge (Merton, 1973).Duarte et al. (2014) stated that “…there is a perception that scientific skepticism has been abandoned or relaxed in many areas…” of marine science. They argue that OA is one such area, and conclude that there is, at best, weak evidence to support an OA-driven decline of calcifiers. Below, I raise some of the aspects of OA research to which I contend an insufficient level of organized scepticism has been applied (in some cases, also to the articles in this theme issue). I arrived at that conclusion after reading hundreds of articles on OA (including, to be fair, some that also raise these issues) and overseeing the peer-review process for the very large number of submissions to this themed issue. Importantly, and as Duarte et al. (2014) make clear, a retrospective application of scientific scepticism such as the one that follows could—and should—be applied to any piece of/body of research.

An “inherent bias” in scientific journals in favour of more calamitous predictions has excluded research showing that marine creatures are not damaged by ocean acidification, which is caused by the sea absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

It has been dubbed the “evil twin of climate change” and hundreds of studies have claimed to show that it destroys coral reefs and other marine life by making it harder for them to develop shells or skeletons.

The review found that many studies had used flawed methods, subjecting marine creatures to sudden increases in carbon dioxide that would never be experienced in real life.

Dr Browman, who is also principal research scientist at the Norwegian Institute of Marine Research, found there had been huge increase in articles on ocean acidification in recent years, rising from five in 2005 to 600 last year.

He said that a handful of influential scientific journals and lobbying by international organisations had turned ocean acidification into a major issue.

“Such journals tend to publish doom and gloom stories . . . stated without equivocation,” he said. The bias in favour of doom-laden articles was partly the result of pressure on scientists to produce eye-catching work, he added.

“You won’t get a job unless you publish an article that is viewed as of significant importance to society. People often forget that scientists are people and have the same pressures on them and the same kind of human foibles. Some are driven by different things. They want to be prominent.”

ENTER climate alarmist in chief – Peter Hannam – Environment Editor at The Sydney Morning Herald / The Age, with his latest doomsday report peppered with the same old regurgitated buzz lines designed to scare you into belief; “tipping points”, “pressure on governments globally to act”, “catastrophic destruction”, “mass bleaching”…

World’s coral reefs face new peril from beneath within decades

New research, published in the journal Science on Friday, has found the sediments on which many reefs are built are 10 times more sensitive to the acidifying oceans than the living corals themselves. Some reef bases are already dissolving.

—–

“Coral reef sediments around the world will trend towards dissolving when seawater reaches a tipping point in acidity – which is likely to occur well before the end of the century,” he said.

Not loving it enough: coral reefs face multiple threats from climate change, including as it turns out, from below.

At risk will be coral reef ecosystems that support tourism, fisheries and the many other human activities, he said.

“It is vital that we put pressure on governments globally to act in concert to lower carbon dioxide emissions as this is the only way we can stop the oceans acidifying and dissolving our reefs,” Professor Eyre said.

Notwithstanding the evidence owing to the inherent alarmism, exaggeration and journal bias of the OA scare, it might be useful for Hannam to consider this simple explanation of what goes on “beneath” the ocean surface…

Corals evolved during the Cambrian era with CO2 levels at 6,000-7,000 ppm, around 4,000% or 20 times higher than today’s “CO2-starved” environment of 400 ppm. Atmospheric and ocean temps were also far higher than today. Corals are made of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) – and could not exist without substantial amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.

The last time I looked, the oceans were pronouncedly alkaline, and even the mad IPCC says the acid-base balance has been altered by only 0.1 acid/base units in the direction of slightly reduced alkalinity. However, that estimate, like much else in the IPCC’s mad gospels, is entirely guesswork, because there is no sufficiently well-resolved global measurement program for ocean pH. However, elementary theoretical considerations would lead us to expect homoeostasis in the acid/base balance of the oceans because the buffering influence of the rock basins in which they live and move and have their being is overwhelmingly powerful. Acid/base neutrality is at a pH of 7.0. The oceans are at about 7.8-8.2 (no one knows, so that the IPCC’s alleged dealkalinization of 0.1 acid/base units is well within the measurement error, so that we cannot actually be sure that it has occurred at all; and, on the elementary ground I have described, it is unlikely to have done so). Besides, there is about 50 times as much CO2 already dissolved in the oceans than there is in the atmosphere, so that even if all of the CO2 in the atmosphere were to make its way into the oceans the pH would scarcely change even in the absence of the overwhelming buffering effect of the rocks. As for calcifying organisms, they are thriving. The calcite corals first achieved algal symbiosis and came into being 550 million years ago (you are too young to remember) during the Cambrian era, when atmospheric CO2 concentration was 25 times what it is today. The more delicate aragonite corals came into being 175 million years ago, during the Jurassic, when CO2 concentration was still 15 times today’s. “Ah,” you may say, “but it is the suddenness of the abrupt increase in CO2 concentration that the fragile corals will not be able to endure.” However, consider the great floods of the Brisbane River (eight of them from 1840-1900 and three of them since). The rainwater that pours into the ocean and meets the Great Barrier Reef is pronouncedly acid, at a pH of 5.4. Yet the corals do not curl up and die. “Ah,” you may say, “but what about the effect of sudden warming on the puir wee corals?” Well, the Great el Nino of 1997/8 gives us the answer to that one. Sudden increases in ocean temperature cause the corals to bleach. There have been two previous Great el Ninos in the past 300 years, and the corals bleached on both those occasions too. It is a natural defense mechanism against natural change. The corals continue to thrive. My brother and his three sport-mad boys dive on the reef every year and, like many others from whom I have heard, find the corals thriving except where the Crown of Thorns infestation has damaged small parts of the reef. Oh, and the Great Barrier Reef Authority, which has been moaning about the effects of rising sea temperatures on the corals, publish a dataset that shows zero increase in sea temperature in the region of the reef throughout the entire period of record. Don’t hold your breath worrying about ocean “acidification”: it can’t happen, even if all the CO2 in the air goes into the ocean.

Reference
Takahashi, A. and Kurihara, H. 2013. Ocean acidification does not affect the physiology of the tropical coralAcropora digitifera during a 5-week experiment. Coral Reefs32: 305-314.

Background
The authors write that “according to the IPCC (2007) models, atmospheric CO2 is predicted to rise to 540-970 ppm by the end of this century and reach a maximum of approximately 1,900 ppm when the world’s fossil fuel reserves are fully exploited,” while noting that “a substantial number of laboratory studies have suggested a decline in coral calcification with a rise in seawater pCO2.” However, they say that recentstudies “have postulated that the sensitivity of corals to elevated levels of CO2 is potentially more diverse than previously considered,” citing the works of Fabricius et al. (2011), Pandolfi et al. (2011) and Rodolfo-Metalpa et al. (2011).

What was done
Intrigued by these new and diverse findings, Takahashi and Kurihara measured the rates of calcification, respiration and photosynthesis of the tropical coral Acropora digitifera – along with the coral’s zooxanthellae density – under near-natural summertime temperature and sunlight conditions for a period of five weeks.

What was learned
The two Japanese researchers found that these “key physiological parameters” were not affected by either predicted mid-range CO2 concentrations (pCO2 = 744 ppm, pH = 7.97, Ωarag = 2.6) or by high CO2concentrations (pCO2 = 2,142 ppm, pH = 7.56, Ωarag = 1.1) over the 35-day period of their experiment. In addition, they state that there was “no significant correlation between calcification rate and seawater aragonite saturation (Ωarag)” and “no evidence of CO2 impact on bleaching.”

What it means
Contrary to what many climate alarmists have long contended, there is mounting evidence that suggests that the negative consequences they predict for the world’s marine life in a future high-CO2 world are by no means assured, nor are they likely to be widespread. Keep Reading »

In the last decade or so, the climate change industry has become so vast and all encompassing, employing so many people, it simply cannot be allowed to fail.

According to a report last year by Climate Change Business Journal, it’s now worth an astonishing $1.5 trillion — about the same as the online shopping industry. If the scare goes away, then all bets are off, because the entire global decarbonisation business relies on it. The wind parks, the carbon sequestration projects, the solar farms, the biomass plantations — none of these green schemes make any kind of commercial sense unless you buy into the theory that anthropogenic CO2 is catastrophically warming the planet and that radical green measures, enforced by governmental regulation, must be adopted to avert it.

It’s no coincidence that the ocean acidification narrative began in the early 2000s — just as it was beginning to dawn on the climate alarmists that global temperatures weren’t going to plan. While CO2 levels were continuing to rise, temperatures weren’t. Hence the need for a fallback position — an environmental theory which would justify the massively expensive and disruptive ongoing decarbonisation programme so assiduously championed by politicians, scientists, green campaigners and anyone making money out of the renewables business. Ocean acidification fitted the bill perfectly.

STRAIGHT-TALKING James Cook University marine geophysicist, Professor Peter Ridd has been an outspoken critic of the relentless tide of fear-mongering, misinformation and anti-science hysteria coming from climate change activists concerning the health of the Great Barrier Reef.

In June this year, Ridd made the headlines after suspecting something was wrong with photographs being used to highlight the apparent rapid decline of the Great Barrier Reef.

After attempting to blow the whistle on the bogus pictures, Ridd was censured by James Cook University and threatened with the sack…

After a formal investigation, Professor Ridd was found guilty of “failing to act in a collegial way and in the academic spirit of the institution”!

His crime was to encourage questioning of two of the nation’s leading reef institutions, the Centre of Excellence for Coral Studies and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, on whether they knew that photographs they had published and claimed to show long-term collapse of reef health could be misleading and wrong.” Graham Lloyd – The Australian – 11 June 2016

Similartotalitarian treatment was dished out by free-thinking James Cook University to the late and great Bob Carter, a former JCU adjunct Professor. Carter was a world renowned climate change expert and sceptic. His crime – speaking outside the permitted doctrine of global warming climate change.

Climate experts tell us that 0.0001 mole fraction Mann-made CO2 is going to make corals extinct.

Ignoring their adherence to the global warming religion, 0nly a complete moron would believe this – because during warmer times the range of corals expands. During the Silurian Era, global temperatures were 13C warmer, CO2 was 10X higher, and corals grew in Greenland.

Over the weekend, mainstream media outlets published news stories regarding the recent leak of an Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) summary document.

After reading this document, the New York Times declared that “scientists have found” that climate change “will pose sharp risks to the world’s food supply.”

In Germany, Der Spiegel also emphasized the food angle. The Associated Press, meanwhile, advised that a “scientific report forecasts” that “starvation, poverty, flooding, heat waves, droughts, war and disease” will be exacerbated by climate change.

When I looked at this summary, however, it wasn’t the IPCC’s prose that caught my attention. It was the less obvious, subterranean story beneath the surface.

Hundreds of people helped write the 30 chapters in the Working Group 2 section of the IPCC’s new report. From those hundreds of people, 71 individuals were selected to work on this…

“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…
climate change provides the greatest opportunity to
bring about justice and equality in the world.”
– Christine Stewart,
former Canadian Minister of the Environment

“The only way to get our society to truly change is tofrighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.”
– emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

The term ‘Ocean Acidification’ is not a scientific term. It is a term used to scare and frighten. The correct scientific term is ‘less alkaline’.

IPCC and alarmist claims of ‘ocean acidification’, causing harm to corals and affecting food security due to increased human CO2 concentrations in the ocean, are completely unsubstantiated by empirical evidence and peer-reviewed science.

Corals evolved during the Cambrian Era six hundred million years ago, with CO2 levels 4000% of what they are now. They are made of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) – and could not exist without substantial amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Unless the chemical properties of CaCO3 have changed, the corals will be just fine.

•••

A new Peer-reviewed study shoots down NOAA and HuffPO’s ‘Equally Evil Twin’ hysteria:

The Multiple Impacts of “Ocean Acidification” on a Tropical Coral

Reference
Takahashi, A. and Kurihara, H. 2013. Ocean acidification does not affect the physiology of the tropical coralAcropora digitifera during a 5-week experiment. Coral Reefs32: 305-314.

Background
The authors write that “according to the IPCC (2007) models, atmospheric CO2 is predicted to rise to 540-970 ppm by the end of this century and reach a maximum of approximately 1,900 ppm when the world’s fossil fuel reserves are fully exploited,” while noting that “a substantial number of laboratory studies have suggested a decline in coral calcification with a rise in seawater pCO2.” However, they say that recentstudies “have postulated that the sensitivity of corals to elevated levels of CO2 is potentially more diverse than previously considered,” citing the works of Fabricius et al. (2011), Pandolfi et al. (2011) and Rodolfo-Metalpa et al. (2011).

What was done
Intrigued by these new and diverse findings, Takahashi and Kurihara measured the rates of calcification, respiration and photosynthesis of the tropical coral Acropora digitifera – along with the coral’s zooxanthellae density – under near-natural summertime temperature and sunlight conditions for a period of five weeks.

What was learned
The two Japanese researchers found that these “key physiological parameters” were not affected by either predicted mid-range CO2 concentrations (pCO2 = 744 ppm, pH = 7.97, Ωarag = 2.6) or by high CO2concentrations (pCO2 = 2,142 ppm, pH = 7.56, Ωarag = 1.1) over the 35-day period of their experiment. In addition, they state that there was “no significant correlation between calcification rate and seawater aragonite saturation (Ωarag)” and “no evidence of CO2 impact on bleaching.”

What it means
Contrary to what many climate alarmists have long contended, there is mounting evidence that suggests that the negative consequences they predict for the world’s marine life in a future high-CO2 world are by no means assured, nor are they likely to be widespread. Keep Reading »

But as each concern is more thoroughly investigated, scientists are finding nature better equipped to cope than they had imagined.

The latest research, published in Nature: Climate Change today, blows away the theory that reefs were doomed due to rising ocean acidification caused by the higher take-up of carbon dioxide in the seas. Keep Reading »

Coral reef recovery from major disturbance is hypothesized to depend on the arrival of propagules from nearby undisturbed reefs. Therefore, reefs isolated by distance or current patterns are thought to be highly vulnerable to catastrophic disturbance. We found that on an isolated reef system in north Western Australia, coral cover increased from 9% to 44% within 12 years of a coral bleaching event, despite a 94% reduction in larval supply for 6 years after the bleaching. The initial increase in coral cover was the result of high rates of growth and survival of remnant colonies, followed by a rapid increase in juvenile recruitment as colonies matured. We show that isolated reefs can recover from major disturbance, and that the benefits of their isolation from chronic anthropogenic pressures can outweigh the costs of limited connectivity.

There’s an interesting study out on the natural pH changes in the ocean. I discussed some of these pH changes a year ago in my post “The Electric Oceanic Acid Test“. Before getting to the new study, let me say a couple of things about pH.

The pH scale measures from zero to fourteen. Seven is neutral, because it is the pH of pure water. Below seven is acidic. Above seven is basic. This is somewhat inaccurately but commonly called “alkaline”. Milk is slightly acidic. Baking soda is slightly basic (alkaline).

Figure 1. pH scale, along with some examples.

The first thing of note regarding pH is that alkalinity is harder on living things than is acidity. Both are corrosive of living tissue, but alkalinity has a stronger effect. It seems counterintuitive, but it’s true. For example, almost all of our foods are acidic. We eat things with a pH of 2, five units below the neutral reading of 7 … but nothing with a corresponding pH of 12, five units above neutral. The most alkaline foods are eggs (pH up to 8) and dates and crackers (pH up to 8.5). Heck, our stomach acid has a pH of 1.5 to 3.0, and our bodies don’t mind that at all … but don’t try to drink Drano, the lye will destroy your stomach.

That’s why when you want to get rid of an inconvenient body, you put lye on it, not acid. It’s also why ocean fish often have a thick mucus layer over their skin, inter alia to protect them from the alkalinity. Acidity is no problem for life compared to alkalinity. Keep Reading »

The last time I looked, the oceans were pronouncedly alkaline, and even the mad IPCC says the acid-base balance has been altered by only 0.1 acid/base units in the direction of slightly reduced alkalinity. However, that estimate, like much else in the IPCC’s mad gospels, is entirely guesswork, because there is no sufficiently well-resolved global measurement program for ocean pH. However, elementary theoretical considerations would lead us to expect homoeostasis in the acid/base balance of the oceans because the buffering influence of the rock basins in which they live and move and have their being is overwhelmingly powerful. Acid/base neutrality is at a pH of 7.0. The oceans are at about 7.8-8.2 (no one knows, so that the IPCC’s alleged dealkalinization of 0.1 acid/base units is well within the measurement error, so that we cannot actually be sure that it has occurred at all; and, on the elementary ground I have described, it is unlikely to have done so). Besides, there is about 50 times as much CO2 already dissolved in the oceans than there is in the atmosphere, so that even if all of the CO2 in the atmosphere were to make its way into the oceans the pH would scarcely change even in the absence of the overwhelming buffering effect of the rocks. As for calcifying organisms, they are thriving. The calcite corals first achieved algal symbiosis and came into being 550 million years ago (you are too young to remember) during the Cambrian era, when atmospheric CO2 concentration was 25 times what it is today. The more delicate aragonite corals came into being 175 million years ago, during the Jurassic, when CO2 concentration was still 15 times today’s. “Ah,” you may say, “but it is the suddenness of the abrupt increase in CO2 concentration that the fragile corals will not be able to endure.” However, consider the great floods of the Brisbane River (eight of them from 1840-1900 and three of them since). The rainwater that pours into the ocean and meets the Great Barrier Reef is pronouncedly acid, at a pH of 5.4. Yet the corals do not curl up and die. “Ah,” you may say, “but what about the effect of sudden warming on the puir wee corals?” Well, the Great el Nino of 1997/8 gives us the answer to that one. Sudden increases in ocean temperature cause the corals to bleach. There have been two previous Great el Ninos in the past 300 years, and the corals bleached on both those occasions too. It is a natural defense mechanism against natural change. The corals continue to thrive. My brother and his three sport-mad boys dive on the reef every year and, like many others from whom I have heard, find the corals thriving except where the Crown of Thorns infestation has damaged small parts of the reef. Oh, and the Great Barrier Reef Authority, which has been moaning about the effects of rising sea temperatures on the corals, publish a dataset that shows zero increase in sea temperature in the region of the reef throughout the entire period of record. Don’t hold your breath worrying about ocean “acidification”: it can’t happen, even if all the CO2 in the air goes into the ocean.

“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…
climate change provides the greatest opportunity to
bring about justice and equality in the world.”
– Christine Stewart,
former Canadian Minister of the Environment

“The emerging ‘environmentalization’ of our civilization
and the need for vigorous action in the interest of the entire global
community will inevitably have multiple political consequences.
Perhaps the most important of them will be a gradual change
in the status of the United Nations. Inevitably, it must
assume some aspects of a world government.”
– Mikhail Gorbachev,
State of the World Forum

“The only way to get our society to truly change is tofrighten people with the possibility of a catastrophe.”– emeritus professor Daniel Botkin

The term ‘Ocean Acidification’ is not a scientific term. It is a term used to scare and frighten. The correct scientific term is ‘less alkaline’.

IPCC and alarmist claims that ‘ocean acidification’, causing harm to corals due to increased human CO² concentrations in the ocean, are completely unsubstantiated by empirical evidence and peer-reviewed science.

Corals evolved during the Cambrian Era six hundred million years ago, with CO2 levels 4000% of what they are now. They are made of Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) – and could not exist without substantial amounts of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Unless the chemical properties of CaCO3 have changed, the corals will be just fine.

•••

A new Peer-reviewed study shoots down NOAA and HuffPO’s ‘Equally Evil Twin’ hysteria:

The Multiple Impacts of “Ocean Acidification” on a Tropical Coral

Reference
Takahashi, A. and Kurihara, H. 2013. Ocean acidification does not affect the physiology of the tropical coralAcropora digitifera during a 5-week experiment. Coral Reefs32: 305-314.

Background
The authors write that “according to the IPCC (2007) models, atmospheric CO2 is predicted to rise to 540-970 ppm by the end of this century and reach a maximum of approximately 1,900 ppm when the world’s fossil fuel reserves are fully exploited,” while noting that “a substantial number of laboratory studies have suggested a decline in coral calcification with a rise in seawater pCO2.” However, they say that recentstudies “have postulated that the sensitivity of corals to elevated levels of CO2 is potentially more diverse than previously considered,” citing the works of Fabricius et al. (2011), Pandolfi et al. (2011) and Rodolfo-Metalpa et al. (2011).

What was done
Intrigued by these new and diverse findings, Takahashi and Kurihara measured the rates of calcification, respiration and photosynthesis of the tropical coral Acropora digitifera – along with the coral’s zooxanthellae density – under near-natural summertime temperature and sunlight conditions for a period of five weeks.

What was learned
The two Japanese researchers found that these “key physiological parameters” were not affected by either predicted mid-range CO2 concentrations (pCO2 = 744 ppm, pH = 7.97, Ωarag = 2.6) or by high CO2concentrations (pCO2 = 2,142 ppm, pH = 7.56, Ωarag = 1.1) over the 35-day period of their experiment. In addition, they state that there was “no significant correlation between calcification rate and seawater aragonite saturation (Ωarag)” and “no evidence of CO2 impact on bleaching.”

What it means
Contrary to what many climate alarmists have long contended, there is mounting evidence that suggests that the negative consequences they predict for the world’s marine life in a future high-CO2 world are by no means assured, nor are they likely to be widespread. Keep Reading »

But as each concern is more thoroughly investigated, scientists are finding nature better equipped to cope than they had imagined.

The latest research, published in Nature: Climate Change today, blows away the theory that reefs were doomed due to rising ocean acidification caused by the higher take-up of carbon dioxide in the seas. Keep Reading »

There’s an interesting study out on the natural pH changes in the ocean. I discussed some of these pH changes a year ago in my post “The Electric Oceanic Acid Test“. Before getting to the new study, let me say a couple of things about pH.

The pH scale measures from zero to fourteen. Seven is neutral, because it is the pH of pure water. Below seven is acidic. Above seven is basic. This is somewhat inaccurately but commonly called “alkaline”. Milk is slightly acidic. Baking soda is slightly basic (alkaline).

Figure 1. pH scale, along with some examples.

The first thing of note regarding pH is that alkalinity is harder on living things than is acidity. Both are corrosive of living tissue, but alkalinity has a stronger effect. It seems counterintuitive, but it’s true. For example, almost all of our foods are acidic. We eat things with a pH of 2, five units below the neutral reading of 7 … but nothing with a corresponding pH of 12, five units above neutral. The most alkaline foods are eggs (pH up to 8) and dates and crackers (pH up to 8.5). Heck, our stomach acid has a pH of 1.5 to 3.0, and our bodies don’t mind that at all … but don’t try to drink Drano, the lye will destroy your stomach.

That’s why when you want to get rid of an inconvenient body, you put lye on it, not acid. It’s also why ocean fish often have a thick mucus layer over their skin, inter alia to protect them from the alkalinity. Acidity is no problem for life compared to alkalinity. Keep Reading »

“We’ve got to ride this global warming issue.
Even if the theory of global warming is wrong,
we will be doing the right thing in terms of
economic and environmental policy.”
– Timothy Wirth,
President of the UN Foundation

“No matter if the science of global warming is all phony…
climate change provides the greatest opportunity to
bring about justice and equality in the world.”
– Christine Stewart,
former Canadian Minister of the Environment

A new study says the warming in the last quarter of the 20th century may been caused by clean-air policies, which led to more solar radiation getting through:

Clean-air policies in developing countries have resulted in reduced levels of anthropogenic atmospheric aerosol pollution. Reductions in aerosol pollution is thought to result in a reduction in haze and cloud layers, leading to an increase in the amount of solar radiation reaching the surface, and ultimately, an increase in surface temperatures. There have been many studies illustrating coherent relationships between surface solar radiation and temperature however, a direct link between aerosol emissions, concentrations, and surface radiation has not been demonstrated to date. Here, we illustrate a coherence between the trends of reducing anthropogenic aerosol emissions and concentrations, at the interface between the North-East Atlantic and western-Europe, leading to a staggering increase in surface solar radiation of the order of ?20% over the last decade.

This suggests not much more warming may come, other than the long-term bounce-back from the Little Ice Age.

Another study challenges the claims of warming preachers that global warming would slow coral growth by making the oceans less alkaline:

The increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration, which has resulted from the burning of fossil fuels, is being absorbed by the oceans and is causing ocean acidification. Ocean acidification involves the decrease of both the pH and the calcium carbonate saturation state. Ocean acidification is predicted to impact the physiology of marine organisms and reduce the calcification rates of corals. In the present study, we measured the rates of calcification, respiration, photosynthesis, and zooxanthellae density of the tropical coral Acropora digitifera under near-natural summertime temperature and sunlight for a 5-week period. We found that these key physiological parameters were not affected by both mid-CO2 (pCO2 = 744 ± 38, pH = 7.97 ± 0.02, ?arag = 2.6 ± 0.1) and high-CO2 conditions (pCO2 = 2,142 ± 205, pH = 7.56 ± 0.04, ?arag = 1.1 ± 0.2) throughout the 35 days experimental period. Additionally, there was no significant correlation between calcification rate and seawater aragonite saturation (?arag). These results suggest that the impacts of ocean acidification on corals physiology may be more complex than have been previously proposed.

UPDATE

Remember how Penny Wong, then the Climate Change Minister, used a drought in 2009 to frighten people into believing the government’s global warming scare?